October 6th, 2009

Grayson Ozias IV has hidden $100,000 somewhere in the United States. It’s up to us to decode his clues on the Go Forth website which will then lead to a location where an item is hidden. The first person to find that item will receive a prize. A picture of the item will then be shown on the Go Forth site where the online community will be able to view it. The chance at the $100,000 prize will be based on how much you learn about Grayson Ozias IV through the campaign, not about how close you are to one of the 11 dead drops, so don’t worry about being in an area that “never gets anything cool.”

The first dead drop is at The Ear Inn, 326 Spring Street, New York City. It must be retrieved between 6 and 9pm EST* and will be located in the SW corner beneath the round table. All indications are that this is a first come-first serve deal, so if you really want the prize for finding the item, don’t be late.

Update: Kristen B is the lucky person that found a postcard underneath the table at The Ear Inn. Reports are that for her efforts she received a $100 gift certificate to a NYC Trapeze School. Pretty cool!

* I’m guessing this should actually read EDT instead of EST since Daylight Saving Time is still in effect (for most of the US) until November 1st. Seriously, if your going to give a time frame and don’t understand the difference between EDT and EST, just drop the middle letter and save the rest of us the confusion.

October 5th, 2009

The second set of gas station info drops has given us another comic book store to pick up information regarding Project Naaczaal.

Forbidden Planet NYC
840 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

Wednesday, October 7, 2009
1-3pm

Codeword: 2012

I’m actually very curious as to whether anyone will show up for this or not. It’s been my experience that NYC drops are notoriously hard to complete. Add in the fact that this is during the work day and my confidence in it being completely successfully drops considerably. Maybe if the LA drop turns out to be pretty cool the NYC people will want to show up for this one. We’ll see on Wednesday.

Thanks to strifey the wonder boy for actually going out and taking part in a live event. I can’t think of the last time he’s done that. Maybe it was because he a: needed gas in his car and b: no one else would be around. You can show your undying gratitude to him by buying him a dishwasher. He would love you forever if you did that.

Players believe there is a dead drop connected to The Society for Linian Studies at the Riverside Branch of the New York Public Library (127 Amsterdam Ave 9 [at W. 65th St.]) that needs to be picked up – hopefully sometime soon.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that they know exactly where to look in the library. The current theory is that it’s a book starting with the call number 998 or 999 – but online searches show that there are no books in those sections at the Riverside branch. Communications with an ingame character seem to confirm that the Riverside branch is correct, and that looking in the General History of Arctic islands & Antarctica (998) or Extraterrestrial worlds (999) is on the right track, but nothing specific has been established… yet.

Is there anyone in NYC near the Riverside branch who is willing to go and at least check the sections out to verify that nothing is there? Or maybe see if something got snuck into the library unofficially? Or, if not, willing to keep an eye on the Unfiction thread and this blog in case players figure out exactly what it is you should be looking for?

Update: New comment from Fritz, the character the players have been communicating with, suggests that a deceased character may have left a book or something in the 998 or 999 section of the Riverside branch – something that is not supposed to be there and thus won’t show up in the online catalog. So hopefully it would be pretty easy to find once you were at the library and looking in the 998/999 sections (or where those sections would be).

Update #2: ARG player extraordinaire Rose was kind enough to go to the library, not once but twice, and found a hidden book on the shelves.

August 3rd, 2009

According to an email from drizjr, Intimation is nearing its endgame and has four new GPS missions for people to play. The new missions are marked with a pignose smiley :@]

The LA mission has been completed, but the Vancouver, St. Louis and NYC missions still need someone to run through them and get the information. As you run through the missions, you will be looking for waypoints tagged with the pignose smiley. These are where you may find a skull ID number (e.g. M-R0IJ1260853U0A74429N). You must copy down this number as this is what will unlock the new skull. Once you have the skull ID number (current speculation is one new skull for each mission) you can post it to the Unfiction thread where the players can access it.

Krystyn has posted about her experience with the new mission, so if you are thinking about going on one, please read about what to expect. Her post about the first mission she ran also has some excellent tips about completing the GPS Missions. Krystyn also invites anyone going on a mission to join the #intimation chat room so that players can give live help if needed.

Frenzied Waters, the new promotional game for Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, has released 11 news capsules into the wild, according to their website at FrenziedWaters.com and their Twitter account @FrenziedWaters. The capsules are believed to hold artifacts from different tragic events regarding sharks.

Update: It seems as if there will be a total of three different drops in these cities. One last week, one today and one next week (July 20th). So the earlier tweets from @FrenziedWaters saying that the capsules in certain cities have been found do not apply to the second group. Wish that had been made clearer. Also wish there was a mute button on the main page. And I still want to know what it wanted me to sign into Facebook for. I authorized it, but all I get is the loading twirl and nothing more.

Note: The Confirmed status on each of these drops is my best guess based upon the tweets from @FrenziedWaters and may or may not be accurate – especially when they start to overlap.

The hidden capsules should be similar to the one already pictured on Frenzied Water’s Flickr page. Other than that, there has been no specific information on what to expect at these coordinates. The capsules have been located inside businesses. At least two have been inside dive shops, but a third was found within a boutique shop, so they really could be at any business in the area, so make sure you ask around.

July 8th, 2009

Sebastian Fitzek, author of Therapy the novel the ARG Charlotte Is Becoming Real was based on, will be appearing at the Bookstore Café in NYC along with Karen Dionne as part of the Housing Works events. They will be reading from their recent works and will be discussing thrillers and thriller writing.

May 18th, 2009

Game: Must Love RobotsType: Character MeetLocation: NYCDate: Whenever you can get 011iver to agree toStatus: Date #1 Complete – Possibility for other dates remain

I was originally going to post about this on Friday before I left work, but didn’t get around to it. However, if I had posted, it would have been with the caveat that this wasn’t an actual scripted event, but something I was hoping could happen based upon the premise of the game.

Must Love Robots is all about finding robot love for 011iver, a very sweet robot who lives with his wacky friend Tim Scribbles. Tim has been trying to find a girl to go out with 011iver and I thought it would be great if someone from the NYC area could charm 011iver into asking them out on a date. Wasn’t sure if it would ever happen, but if a bunch of people could run around Central Park with fennels yelling “BONUS! BONUB!” surely someone could try to seduce a real fake robot for a date.

Of course, I had no idea that the first someone to do that would be me. 011iver contacted me over the weekend asking if I could meet him for a picnic date (which Tim would film for Must Love Robots). I’ve agreed and am just waiting for actual details to be sorted out.

But this means that the possibility for others to go out on a date with 011iver just went up. So what are you waiting for girls? Sign up at RobotFriendFinder.com and start chatting up 011iver. You can also find him on Twitter as @011iver. He’s really sweet and who knows? Maybe the two of you can find true robot love.

Update: I almost forgot – if you’d like to get a free Inactiveware t-shirt, be one of the first two “robots” to send in a video response to one of the Must Love Robots videos.

Update #2: 011iver has posted a video on RobotFriendFinder looking for tips for this weekends date. So please head over there and sign up and let him know what your advice is. Or, if for some reason you don’t want to sign up to RFF, his friend Chuck has also posted the video on her blog where you can comment.

Our date is scheduled for Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 2pm EDT at the Arch at Grand Army Plaza, which is the northernmost point of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY. I’ll be arriving at Port Authority sometime between 7am and 11am (depends which bus I take) and departing NYC between 8:30pm and 11pm. If you would like to meet up with me outside of my date with 011iver, let me know. I’m already possibly meeting with one or two other people from #unfiction, but the more the merrier!

Update #3: My picnic date with 011iver was great! Except for when the ‘roboist’ showed up and threatened violence which caused 011iver and Tim to panic and leave. My (in-character) write up is on my blog. The Guide write up and videos from Tim should be coming soon.

Participants will take on a 1 mile chase through the city, so you must be prepared to get a bit sweaty. Being “fast, athletic or coordinated” seems to be optional. You should wear sneakers and comfortable running clothing. You should also bring a bottle of water and a flashlight for the night mission, but leave your other gear behind – unless you really want to run with all of it.

If you are interested in participating, sign up at the Cryptozoo Network and RSVP so that they know how many runners will be attending.

May 8th, 2009

Skynet Research is going to be airing their new infomercial on FOX affiliates later this week. Despite the fact that you can already see it on their Vimeo page, the Resistance site Resist or Be Terminated believes that something new might be hidden in the broadcast versions.

So if you live in NYC or LA, fire up your DVR and record the infomercial and see if there is anything puzzley to be found.

Update: The first two infomercials have aired, and ResistOrBeTerminated.com hacked the feed and broadcast their own version of the infomercial. They plan on hacking the next two broadcasts as well, so there still might be new information to be had.

May 4th, 2009

Velicorp.com is recruiting new applicants via an aptitude test on its website. After filling answering all the question, you are shown what part of the Velicorp company you would be most ideal for and then given a chance to submit your name for an in-person interview, either in NYC or Los Angeles.

10 players from each city will be randomly selected for an in-person interview, which will be a 20 minute limousine ride. During the ride, the player will be asked questions by an interviewer and filmed for possible inclusion in the Xi game. Or so says the Official Rules.

So if you are in NYC or LA and fancy taking a limo ride and answering some questions, enter the contest and cross your fingers that you’re one of the lucky ones selected. You never know, it could happen.